Page 3072 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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The bill also introduces the requirement to keep a notifiable invoices register. The director-general is required to keep an electronic register of all notifiable invoices. The director-general may also correct any mistakes, errors or omissions in that register. The register must include either a copy of the invoice or the following details: the name of the entity invoicing the territory, the entity’s ABN, the name of the responsible territory entity for the invoice, a brief description of what the invoice is for, information identifying the related contract if there is one, the date the invoice was raised, the date the invoice was paid, the value of the good or service charged for under the invoice, and anything else prescribed by regulation. Information on the notifiable invoices register must be freely available online for at least five years.
To ensure that the register is kept up to date, the responsible territory entity must either update the register or give the information to the director-general within 30 days after the invoice was paid. The government must ensure that entities intending to issue an invoice for the provision of a good or a service are aware that their details will be available on the notifiable invoices register.
The bill does not include the publishing of payments made in the form of salaries to public servants as they do not attract an invoice. However, if a contractor invoices the territory in excess of the prescribed amount, it would be captured by this legislation.
Accountability in spending taxpayers’ money is an important part of good government. In fact, it is a vital part of good government. The Canberra Liberals are committed to ensuring that the government spends its money wisely.
I was pleased to read that the Labor Party also supports this ideal. In reference to federal government spending, federal Labor member Tony Burke said:
The Labor Party believes that transparency and accountability for government expenditure is of paramount importance.
I hope that the local Labor Party members share their federal colleague’s view on the importance of transparency.
With much fanfare, the Chief Minister said, when taking on the job, that she would increase government transparency. On 23 August 2011 Ms Gallagher said:
One of the first commitments I made as Chief Minister was to improve access to government information and provide more opportunities for public involvement in the many and varied challenges and opportunities coming before the ACT government through a comprehensive open government strategy. One element of this strategy was to have an open government website developed to provide a single gateway of access to information and to have this operational by the end of September/early October.
Once operational this website will provide public access to a range of government information including government material released through freedom of information applications, government commissioned reports and other data, where appropriate for release. I do expect that this will be an evolving website, as we gain greater capacity and understanding of open government more information will be released and added to this site.
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